Chicky Peche Salad

Bonjour mes amis!

I come to you again to bring you news of salad with peaches from the cookbook At Home with the French Classics!

I actually made this recipe more than a month ago and neglected to write about it. Has anyone else struggled with productivity during this pandemic? I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit sensitive to that constant flickering light at the end of the tunnel. I keep hoping it will finally get brighter and I will get out, but that light is starting to look a bit like it’s fueled by gas. A gas light if you will.

Now that we got that out, let’s get productive and make this refreshing summertime salad.

What you’ll need

• 8 skinless, boneless chicken half breasts (about 3 pounds) poached, chilled, and diced
• 1 avocado diced
• 2 white or yellow peaches, peeled and diced
• 1 lime
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
• 3/4 to 1 cup mayonnaise, to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• pinch of curry powder
• 1 head lettuce, separated into leaves
• Tomato wedges or cherry tomatoes

Before I get into our first step, let me just give you this lazy chef hack. It’s ok if you don’t want to cook and chill your own chicken my friends. I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here that most of my readers are not aspiring contestants for Top Chef, Iron Chef, The Great British Bake Off, and/or insert your favorite cooking competition show here.

I’m here to tell you my dear loyal readers that it’s ok to just buy some frozen chopped chicken at your favorite grocer. We aren’t pro chefs here. It’s ok.

Although if I were a pro chef I think my favorite role would be a saucier personally. I think we can make the argument that I’m saucy kind of girl. It’d fit me well in the kitchen world.

Now that I’ve given you permissions and confessions, let’s move onto actual steps. Our first step is to toss that chicken, avocado, peaches, and juice from half of the lime in a large bowl. Toss it for a bit and then add celery, scallions, and hard-boiled eggs. Continue tossing and mixing.

We are now ready to flavor our mayonnaise with some salt, pepper, curry, and the remaining lime juice. Add this mixture to your chicken mix and toss yet again. Once everything is mixed together put it in the fridge and let it marinate for at least and hour. The cookbook mentions you can also let it sit for a day.

Once it’s marinated, get your lettuce out and tear off leaves equally for serving. Place your mixture on the bed of lettuce and then garnish with your tomatoes.

As you can see in the photo above this salad is a chonky, green, and bountiful salad. It reminds me of the American Cobb Salad only French of course. I can hear French people sigh as they read this. I imagine then like so…

There is no what came first, the chicken or the egg debate on this one. Our French friends made this salad so Americans could walk and I personally am grateful. This salad is a meal and a tasty one at that. The texture of the egg and avocado pair nicely because the avocado smoothes the egg out like butter on toast. The tomatoes are a salad garnish staple for a reason and adding peaches to this mix gives the salad a nice splash of sweet that doesn’t overpower the rest of the flavor.

All in all a great salad and one you could even make more American by turning it into a chicken salad sandwhich.

Please French people don’t hate me for suggesting that. I love you….

I’m Pepe and the cat is French people to be clear

Grilled Shrimp on a Stick with Mango and Avocado

This delightful recipe is brought to you by Cooking Light and probably the grill company Weber. I’m basing this on the fact there’s an ad for it right next to the recipe. I do recommend having a grill if you want to make this, but it can be done without.

I have proof. There are pictures. They are at the end. You have to read to the end. If you ignore me and scroll down a demon troll will steal your breath while you sleep.

The real cause of sleep apnea!

What you’ll need.

• 3/4 cup of water
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 6 tablespoons of fresh lime juice
• 2 1/2 tablespoons of fish sauce
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon of finely grated carrot
• 1 tablespoon of thinly sliced serrano chile
• 36 large shrimp (about 2 pounds)
• 2 ripe unpeeled avocados, halved
• 2 peeled mangoes, each cut into 6 wedges
• 12 lime wedges
• 6 large Bibb lettuce leaves
• Cilantro (optional)

The fist step is making your marinating sauce. To do so, combine the first five ingredients in a bowl. Take out about 3/4 a cup of this mixture for a later use and add the carrot and chili into the remaining mixture.

Now we will prepare our shrimp. You can buy unpeeled shrimp or you can be lazy and get pre-cooked and peeled shrimp. I was lazy and got frozen peeled shrimp from Trader Joes and I regret nothing!

If you get unpeeled shrimp, after you peel you’ll want to butterfly the shrimp by cutting the backside of the shrimp so that it will flare out when cooked. Be careful when cutting. The goal isn’t to cut all the way through, but to let it air out so to speak. It’s like when you cook something in a pot and maybe you have the lid on, but you prop it up a little so it doesn’t overcook.

That’s the best way I can describe it in cooking terms.

The other term would be it’s like when you are a troll and are trying to steal little Drew Barrymore’s breath while she sleeps.  You don’t want to steal all of her breath, because than you’ll run out of oxygen supply. Just take a little and try to avoid that cat. He’s got his eye on you afterall.

Once these steps are complete, you’ll marinate the shrimp in the 3/4 cup juice mix for an hour in the fridge.

When the hour is up, remove the shrimp from the sauce but don’t throw the sauce out! That sauce is not ready to quit you just yet.

Prepare the grill for medium-high heat while you cook the sauce that won’t quit in a pan. Bring it to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for five minutes.

You should now be ready to grill your shrimp! Do so by placing as many as you like on your skewers. The cookbook said three for a 12inch if you need rules, but I chose to ignore that.

Grill the shrimp for 2 1/2 minutes on each side. While they grill, bast frequently with the sauce that won’t quit, which will finally make it quit by the way.

You are now ready to grill the avocado and mango. The first step in doing so is to cut 3 avocado halves in half. Take one half for grilling and for the other, dice into cubes.

Before you know it, the sauce that won’t quit rises from the ashes and begs you to brush it all over your avocado and mango wedges. Comply and than grill with limes wedges for 2 minutes on each side.

We are now almost to the end! The end consists of placing one lettuce leaf on each serving plate. On top of the lettuce, place two mango slices, 2 lime wedges, one avocado wedge, and two skewers. Garnish with the diced avocado and cilantro.

The final step is to serve with the carrot sauce from the beginning and enjoy!

I was pleased with this recipe. I would make it again if I owned a grill. It’s too messy, hot, and frustrating to try to do in an oven.

The sauce is a refreshing crisp and citrus flavor. The avocado and mangoes are delicious and pair well with the shrimp.

I could just eat the diced avocado on it’s own though.

I recommend trying this in the summertime with a nice glass of white wine or if you are classy like I am, a lemon shandy. What is grilling without some kind of beer beverage anyway?